27. It argued that the principle of legality had not been violated, in view of the nature of the political control exercised in the case. It indicated that it is incomprehensible that the petitioner argues on the one hand as a normative basis that there was an Electoral Law, and on the other hand that there was a "legality vacuum". It argued that the aforementioned rule established the National Congress’ powers of control in a fully regulated manner. 28. It argued that the right to judicial protection had not been violated because the petitioner failed to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the available remedies. It added that the petitioner also had recourse to administrative litigation as a remedy available against decisions of organs of the public administration breaching fundamental rights. It indicated that the alleged bias of the Constitutional Court has not been proven and that, therefore, there was an expeditious avenue for judicial protection at the constitutional level. 29. Finally, regarding the obligation to respect the rights of the American Convention and the duty to adopt provisions of domestic law, the State maintained that it has substantially altered its electoral institutional framework to meet the Inter-American standard; and that this must be considered integrally as a guarantee of non-repetition and observance of the content of the obligations arising from said standard. III. DETERMINATIONS OF FACT A. Context 30. The Commission considers applicable to the present case the background and context that the Inter-American Court had as proven in the Cases of Quintana Coello and Camba Campos against Ecuador. In particular, the Commission summarizes the following: From 1996 until 2007, the Republic of Ecuador had seven Presidents. Over this period none of them could complete the four-year constitutional mandate. (...) Over the years, structural reforms and changes to the composition of the high courts have been frequent in Ecuador and, at times, the high courts were intervened by the political authorities. According to expert witness Mó nica Rodríguez, proposed by the State, “[i]n Ecuador, the independence of the Supreme Court of Justice has been compromised and the institution exploited throughout its history. The context of this case is related to the termination of mandates of members of the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, and the Supreme Court of Justice of Ecuador in November and December 2004. These terminations emanated from the National Congress (...) President Abdalá Bucaram was elected on August 10, 1996; however, his government only lasted 180 days, because Congress removed him from office in February 1997. Following his removal, Fabián Alarcón Rivera as appointed interim President of the Republic. On April 7, 1997, this President convened a referendum by Executive Decree No.201. The political objective of the referendum was to legitimate Alarcón’s government, because the constitutionality of his appointment had been questioned. However, the consultation had two other clear objectives: to legitimate the actions of the public organs and to restore the 4